Ashlynn Royce

My love for the Green Industry started at a very young age. I was born and raised in Northeastern Vermont, nestled in an endless acreage of forest, to a family that did all things outdoors. Gardening, hunting, fishing and horticulture/agriculture were deeply ingrained in my family and always something I felt drawn to growing up.

This love led me to pursue degrees in environmental science, biology and geology at Northern Vermont University, a college that further fueled my love for the outdoors and enhanced my knowledge of the natural world. Upon graduating in May 2019, I was left to figure out where I belonged in the workforce and find a career path that would allow me to be immersed in the outdoors, share my knowledge and experience with others, and continue to push myself to continue learning.

My now-husband and I moved to Nashville in January 2020, and I applied for a landscape crew leader position with Davey Tree, thinking it would be a fun summer job while I searched for a job in the environmental science field. Looking back, I will forever be thankful for the manager that I had at the end of that year, who helped me see that a career in the green industry was exactly where I belonged. This manager never looked at me as less of an asset for being a woman, and rather as an invaluable addition to the company. He pushed me to grow my knowledge throughout the time that I worked for him, and even to this day, he continues to be a mentor and helps me navigate the industry and client relationships. I have been fortunate to be able to rely on many industry professionals to seek advice from in times of turbulence. I’ve grown to call them my friends.

From my time at this company, I found a sense of community within a newly established “Davey Women’s +” group, where once a month a group of women, members of the LGBTQ+ community and allies get together and talk about our experiences in the workforce and how we can best help each other reach success. During one of these calls, I was asked to share my background and how my early life led me to the position and career path I am currently on. Hearing of the many diverse career paths from other employees solidified my belief that there is no one formula for success, and there is no “correct” timeline for how quickly or slowly people should advance.

My advice to any woman entering this industry is to not take no for an answer. Take any opportunities presented to you and seek out new opportunities yourself. In my experience, women do need to prove themselves and their skills more than men. We need to put more time and energy into the pursuit of knowledge and a career path of our choosing.

We may not what our next steps in our careers will be, but if you take knowledge, connections and processes from every experience and learn something new from the good and bad experiences we as women have in a heavily male-dominated industry, we become a force to be reckoned with. If you want something, don’t let anyone stop you from achieving it.